How often are you misting? I’m under the impression of doing a good mist before lights on and a good mist after lights off? Hand mist in between if needed?
About 20 - 30 minutes after lights on in am and 20-30 minutes after lights off at pm. I do a midnight to boost humidity for about 30 sec. During the day I use a dripper and hand mist during day if necessary.
To add on!
The duration should be at least 3-4 minutes on the morning and evening spray sessions. This is long enough to trigger a drinking response in chameleons. I do three and a half minutes personally.
I second that midnight boost as well, especially as we head into winter and the air becomes dryer.
okay follow up question.. just testing out the 1 minute length, i accumulated a good bit of water! is it okay to have some water sitting at the bottom for the day until i’m home from work? -i have a taller tray at the bottom that will collect the water, so it won’t be spilling out onto the dresser top or anything- or should i put paper towels to soak up as much as possible? other ideas/suggestions?
(i plan on taking the backs of the drawers off of the dresser matcha is sitting on, drilling holes in bottom of her enclosure for draining & a hole in the dresser, and place a bucket underneath for the water to drain into eventually, it’s just not something that is immediately happening.)
I use a Wi-Fi thermometer/hydro meter to track my heat and humidity. The app keeps the data for up to a year. I'm almost always adjusting the misting times. The 6:30pm one only goes off when I'm not home to hand mist them.
Figuring out a drainage solution is, in my opinion, the most difficult part of chameleon keeping to set up. I am still not happy with my solution.
Depending on how deep the water is, if you're dealing with surface level puddles, I think that should be fine through the day as long as you dry it off daily.
I have a few holes drilled in the middle of the bottom of my enclosure, and I have it sitting in a drain pan which has holes drilled into it as well, and the enclosure is held up by a layer of PVC pipe for stability with a large tote to catch the run off water.
(The issue with my set up is that the drain pan is difficult to clean because there is no clearance underneath to clean it without lifting the entire enclosure. I will have to add more height to the PVC pipe structure)